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Negative Emotional Cues Send Drivers to Distraction
Driver distraction is one of the leading causes of motor vehicle accidents. In 2013 alone, 3,154 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Obvious distractions, like talking on a cell phone, can contribute to accidents by physically diverting a driver’s attention away from the road. But scientists are finding that more subtle emotional cues in our environment can also have a potentially dangerous influence on attention and, ultimately, our driving behavior.
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Tweeners Trust Peers More Than Adults When Judging Risks
NPR: If you are the parent of a preteen, you are all too aware that they suddenly seem to value the opinions of their peers far more than yours. The good news, if there is any, is that you're not alone. Young teenagers ages 12 to 14 are more influenced by their peers' opinions than they are by adults', a study finds. That's true only for that age group, not for older teens, children or adults. Researchers asked 563 people visiting the London Science Museum to rate the riskiness of activities like crossing the street on a red light, biking without a helmet, or bungee jumping. The study was published last week in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: NPR
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What You Order for Dinner Tells a Restaurant More Than You Might Expect
The Wall Street Journal: Men order steak, women order salad, right? The restaurant world has never been that simple, of course, and especially not now, when diners expect an experience and not just a meal when they go out to eat. Yet many chefs say it is remarkable how many diners continue to order largely along gender-based lines. Restaurants and menu consultants say it pays to balance gender preferences, both when designing individual dishes and when planning the overall menu. The Regency Bar and Grill, inside the Loews Regency Hotel on New York’s Park Avenue, had some of these principles in mind when it recently expanded its meat-heavy menu.
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At What Age Does Your Brain Peak?
Pacific Standard: Sports writers will tell you that athletes peak in their 20s, after which point their skills quickly erode. Most other things in our lives—our careers, for example—take a good deal more time to develop. Intelligence, it turns out, peaks a bit later, too, though with a twist, according to a recent study: Some facets of intelligence peak when we're still in high school or college, while others continue to improve into our 40s, 50s, and beyond.
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Morality Report: Precrime Comes to the Office
The Atlantic: As an indicator of a job candidate's virtues, the trio of a résumé, a cover letter, and an interview is rudimentary at best: Recruiters have been shown to spend about six seconds pondering the average résumé, and those who formed positive impressions from certain candidates’ résumés have been shown to go softer on them in interviews. A hire is the result of a series of imperfect judgments. The rewards of selecting a good employee are obvious; the harms of hiring a bad one are less commonly discussed.
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Does loneliness affect life span?
The Washington Post: THE QUESTION Not exercising, being obese, smoking and abusing drugs are among the factors known to shorten people’s life spans. Might being lonely or socially isolated have a similar effect? THIS STUDY analyzed data from 70 studies, involving 3.4 million people who were, on average, 66 years old at the start of their study. During the research periods, which averaged seven years, about 25 percent of the participants died. People who reported being lonely were 26 percent more likely to have died than those who did not. Mortality risk was 20 percent higher for those who were socially isolated than for those who were not and 32 percent higher for people who lived alone vs.
